1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to a portable terminal, and more particularly, to a haptic feedback device for a portable terminal, which provides a haptic feedback function to an input device of the portable terminal such as a jog dial, a wheel key, a 2-way key, etc.
2. Description of the Related Art
Haptic feedback, often referred to as simply “haptics”, is the use of the sense of touch in a user interface design to provide information to an end user. When referring to mobile phones and similar devices, this generally means the use of vibrations from the device's vibration alarm to denote that a touchscreen button has been pressed. In this particular example, the phone would vibrate slightly in response to user activation of an on-screen control, making up for the lack of a normal tactile response that the user would experience when pressing a physical button.
It is also common for a touch-screen phone to include a jog dial, a wheel key, or a navigation key for, e.g., menu search. However, the jog dial, wheel key, or navigation key, is not provided with a haptic feedback function, or merely provides a sense of clicking by using a conventional dome switch, failing to be in harmony with vibrational tactile sense provided by the haptic feedback function for touch screen manipulation. That is, the haptic feedback function using an operation of a vibration motor is provided in touch screen manipulation, but the jog dial or wheel key cannot provide the same haptic feedback function or merely provides a sense of clicking by using a separate structure. Further, if the jog dial or wheel key is not provided with a haptic feedback function, a user is inconvenienced by having to intently watch the screen to check if a desired operation is performed, when manipulating the jog dial or wheel key.